Angels in the ER Are Earning Their Wings -- Stat

Teddi Tindall had to think fast when a mental patient became belligerent, scaring workers in the cramped emergency room at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica.

The hospital volunteer grabbed him by the hand and waltzed with him to the sound of an imaginary band. The man suddenly calmed down.

“I had to do whatever I could to assuage the grief, mood swings or whatever, even if that means making a fool out of myself,” Tindall said.

It is that sort of spontaneity and sensitivity that drives the success of the Angels in the ER program, hospital workers say. More than 30 adult volunteers fill four-hour shifts seven days a week doing tasks such as tucking a blanket under a patient or holding worried family members’ hands as their loved ones fight for their lives.

“They’re not here to do menial tasks, but to give patients a lot of human attention,” said Russ Kino, director of the hospital’s emergency department. “They free up physicians and nurses to do their jobs more efficiently and precisely.”

Kino said the department had often fielded written complaints about long waits and inattention to visitors. But since the Angels took the floor nearly four years ago, those letters have dwindled to a handful a year. Now, opening a letter complimenting the care has become the norm, he said. “We underestimated how much this stuff means to patients,” he said.

In recent years, emergency rooms have experimented with methods such as music, clowns and dogs to brighten the mood of their wards, said Alma Reidel, president of the American Society of Directors of Volunteer Services.

Programs that resonated the most with visitors, she said, were simple ones where volunteers offered crackers and juice to people marooned in the waiting room.

“It’s definitely a way of life in healthcare where [hospitals] are committed to a culture of service excellence,” Reidel said.

Although St. John’s is not a trauma center, the Angels deal with car accident injuries, heart attacks and occasional gunshot wounds.

The volunteers have diverse backgrounds, including retired nurses, a math teacher and a radio station owner.

Despite their busy schedules, they volunteer several hours a week for the same reason: to comfort people in their most frightening times.

“I give patients verbal first aid,” said Carla Hummer, the founder of the program. “I tell them, ‘You’re in the right place. We’re only here to make you feel better.’ ”

The idea for the Angels came to Hummer nearly four years ago. She was a nurse who ran the employee health office and was disturbed that patients had to sit and wait for hours with few updates on their status. Hummer was already a volunteer with the hospital’s Irene Dunne Guild, which raises funds and organizes volunteers for the hospital.

When Kino approached the guild and echoed Hummer’s concerns about the long, lonely waits patients endured, the 56-year-old mother of two immediately organized Angels in the ER. Anyone who wanted to join was screened through the hospital’s volunteer office and had to shadow a veteran volunteer for 20 hours.

At first, Hummer and Ann Harter were the only members. There were growing pains. The emergency room staff had to get used to new people competing for space in their cramped surroundings. News of the program spread through word of mouth. Soon there were dozens of volunteers.

Janie Crane, a Pacific Palisades resident who was already volunteering with an organization helping poor, immigrant families, joined the Angels soon after Kino made a plea to the guild.

Crane, 61, was quickly thrown into the fire. In her first few weeks, she found herself consoling parents whose baby girl died of sudden infant death syndrome. The couple were hysterical and the hospital staff met afterward to discuss how they could have handled the situation better.

“The emergency staff were very, very upset,” Crane said. “I was surprised. I thought they were used to this sort of thing. They knew they had done all they could, but they were confused about the parents’ reaction.”

So Crane spoke up. She lost her son in a climbing accident nine years ago. She remembered the call from a doctor in Colorado dispassionately telling her that her son was dead and not much else.

“I told the doctors and nurses [at St. John’s] that what they were screaming out for is information,” Crane said. “Sometimes the medical staff are afraid. They lost a child. They don’t know what else to do. But you’ve got to communicate, whoever was with the baby last, everything they did for the child. For some reason, parents want information. It’s the only way they get that stupid word, ‘closure.’ ”

For patients, sometimes all that is needed is someone who will listen.

In a dimly lighted emergency bay recently, a frail Nikki Luederitz was waiting to have her chest examined. She was the recipient of a heart transplant and came into the ER complaining of chest pains. The 39-year-old Venice resident was consumed by fear. Leaning against her bed and whispering into her ear and wiping her tears was Harter.

“She eased my anxieties,” Luederitz said. “The nurses are too busy so you can’t cry in front of them like I just did. [Harter] brought me a blanket and let me talk to her about how worried I was. I don’t know any other hospital like this.”